“You ready to order?” The blonde woman asked me in her thick polish accent. Ever since I moved to into the apartment on my own, I had been eating breakfast at this place down by Queen St. and Triller Ave.
“Eggs benny, coffee and water please.” I said, rattling off my standard order. The small family owned diner was quiet that Tuesday morning. The bright white floor and deep red chairs and tables gave off a pseudo modern vibe. The two old men standing in the kitchen awaiting my order looked on from the open kitchen as I rattled off my request to their young niece.
I grabbed a paper off the recently abandoned table next to me a stared at the front page. Though my thoughts were not with the story, but with the dreams of that night at Bathurst station I had been having. It was as if they were reminding me that there was no escape from the shit feelings I had been dealing with.
I have known for a long time my exit wouldn’t be till I was an old man or a sick one. Truth be told killing yourself is just a fucking inconvenience to so many. It shatters your family, whose jobs are affected, and there for coworkers, their friends, their lives. And, if you do it by jumping in front of a train like I wanted to then you waste the time of the entire cities transit department, and the literally hundreds of thousands of people. The echo of every suicide is felt by thousands.
You don’t get the right to fuck with that many people's lives just because you don’t want to deal with your pain anymore. It’s selfish, I was being selfish. I'm well aware depression is a metal health issue that you cannot control, but what you do about it. That you can control.
As soon as I finished what is to this day the best eggs benny I have ever had, I left the restaurant and started my walk to my apartment just four short blocks away. I strolled through the cold but bus streets dodging hipster after hipster as I contemplated my situation.
A post meal cigarette will help get the juices flowing. That first deep haul always had such a sweet sting to it. I had to try and come up with a way to get better so I tried to think about the times that I'm not depressed. As I mulled over it as I passed the old run-down pharmacy. I come to a stop at Jamison Ave and wait for the green light.
The only time that I'm not depressed is when I'm working. I thought to myself about how every time I build something or drive a fork my deep sadness just melts away and I feel, well not necessarily happy, but I don’t wanna swallow a bullet and I’d call that a plus! I took another drag off my smoke. I really have to try and get some gigs booked. I gotta build.
The next day I had no gig and no work at the dock. I usually picked up a Saturday shift but there wasn’t one available. So, there I found myself, bored and doing nothing. The exact opposite of what I need to be doing to deal with my depression. I got up from my computer and looked around my small closet of an apartment. My dirty clothes were strewn across my brown tile floor, the couch had become a glorified shelf as did my kitchen counter and small two foot by two-foot table that sat between the couch and kitchen counter.
The counter had become my primary storage area. Bare where the cupboards meant to house my plates, mugs and glasses. Those where firmly planted on the kitchen counter in various states of cleanliness. My bathroom wasn’t filthy, but it sure wasn’t fuckin’ clean.
It was the only thing I had to kill time and occupy my mind. So, I cleaned. Every corner, nook and cranny. Seven hours, four garbage bags and a lot of rags later my apartment was spotless. All I had left was laundry which was an easy fix with the washing machines down stairs. After loading the machine and marching back up to my first-floor apartment I sat in front of my computer and loaded up yet another YouTube video.
I realized something, something earth shattering, ground breaking and whatever cliched phrase you want to say. I didn’t feel like complete shit. The combination of having done something and not living in a god damn pig pen actually made me feel good. I then realized something else.
“I have nothing to do tomorrow.” I said out loud. “What the hell should I do to feel good.?” I looked back at my computer and was struck the you red and white simplicity of the webpage's logo. “YouTube.” I said to myself.
The next day I set up one light, and used the webcam built into my computer and filmed my first episode of “The Nerd Knows.” If I remember right, I talked about a couple comics that had just come out and I made fun of the Arrow trailer. I got maybe twenty or thirty views, that was more people listening to me than I have in my everyday life.
For the next month my routine was regular, Drive to work, Drive at work, Drive home, clean, write and shoot a video sleep repeat. I was still doing all my grocery shopping at 3:30 am, in a city of over 3 million I barley saw anyone. That used to depress me but now I had grown in different to it, I was too busy.
I wasn’t just driving fork during this time though. I had actually gotten a few odd gigs over the winter. It was helping me gain confidence in what I was doing with my work. When I wasn’t trying to create entertainment with my YouTube, I was doing it at shows, events and big parties at skyscrapers downtown.
Spring was getting closer and so was the summer concert season. I didn’t hate driving fork but I did hate my boss. Now the story I’m about to tell you is, grey, morally speaking. So, I get a call on Thursday.
“Hey Jae it’s Rand.” Rand was a Booker for my newest client I.N.H. Productions.
“Hey man.” I said as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.
“I have a gig tomorrow night, $25.00 and hour, you’d be on the lighting crew.”
“Umm.” I thought about it for a second. If I take the gig, I have to call in sick to the dock. After a moment I realized they could deal without me being there for one night. “Yeah I can do that.”
So, I do the gig, call in sick to the dock…kind of. See I had been sick a couple times that month. Kept waking up sick to my stomach. I knew calling in sick wasn’t really the best option. So, what does one do in this situation?
“Hey there, It’s Jae.” I said to my boss over the phone. “I just got a call from my sister. My father has had a heart attack, I have to get back to London to be with him, so I won’t be in today.”
I know, I know, it’s a low move but let’s be real. At least half of you mother fuckers reading this have done something similarly messed up in a desperate attempt to get a day off. I wasn’t even taking that day off. I was accepting more money to go do another job behind there back. I was learning a lot about prostitution in the great Canadian show biz scene.
Anyway, the next Monday I showed up to work and my boss comes up to me.
“Where were you on Friday?” He asked
“I called in; you didn’t get the message?” I asked him
“Yes, I got it, your father, but Jae.”
“Yeah.” I said
“That doesn’t get my trucks unloaded.”
“My father had a heart attack dude.”
“I almost did to. Don’t let it happen again.” He said
I fumed this short little SriLaken mother fucker, HE DOESN’T KNOW I WAS FULL OF SHIT. HE WANTS ME TO PUT THIS JOB AHEAD OF MY TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY HEALTHY FATHER. FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!
“Sure, thing boss.” I said. I was gonna fuck that little man over the first chance I got.
Now I know that a normal human reading this would think that me being upset about him acting like that would clearly show he knew I was full of shit. See that’s the thing about us stagehands, actors, writers, whatever the position that’s in show business you can name, we are all at least a little bit fucked in the head.
Even though I know logically I shouldn’t have been upset with him, to this day all I can think is.
“FUCK THAT GUY!”
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